Story By: Juan Mayes, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Golder’s News And Sport

This is the Yemeni bronze Kung Fu medallist who has drowned while attempting to swim into a Spanish city to enter Europe.

Former Yemeni fighter Helal Alhaj, 24, was found dead last week at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Melilla, a Spanish autonomous city in northern Africa bordering Morocco.

The incident occurred on 16th September and his body was found by the Civil Guard Special Team for Sub-aquatic Activities (GEAS) two days later but reports have only recently surfaced in local media.

A source told Spanish online newspaper ‘eldiario’: “GEAS conducted a detailed and intense search which found the lifeless body of a young person at the bottom of the sea that matches the description of the migrant.” The body has since been confirmed to be the 24-year-old athlete.

The Melilla Government made a statement saying Alhaj was “trying to enter Melilla swimming after a boat dropped him off about 30 metres from the coast in the early hours of the morning.”

Two surviving migrants told local media “he lived in Algeria, where he studied but wanted to go to Europe to work” after they met during the journey.

Alhaj represented Yemen in the 2018 Asian Games and won the bronze medal in the 2017 Islamic Solidarity Games in the wushu 60 kilograms category.

Wushu is also known as Chinese kungfu and was developed in 1949 to standardise the practice of Chinese martial arts.

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